I just uploaded a blog post about James Hajicek and Carol Panaro-Smith over at 52Photographers.com. A lot of what they say in their artist statement is exactly what I feel about the process, especially this statement:
In trying to strip everything extraneous from the photographic process and get to the very magic at its source, we have found ourselves in an arena ruled by serendipity, elusive mysteries, fugitive images, and the ruling master of all – the ultimate impermanence of everything. (emphasis added)
These two work collaboratively, and hand coat paper, as opposed to my process of using commercially made photo paper.
Last weekend I made a few Lumens, one of which I had placed the plant and paper in the glass, then left it in my basement for over a month. It received no direct exposure to the sun, but the reflected UV rays still exposed it a little.
The most exciting thing about this particular plant/print, is due to it sitting for so long, the stem of the plant began to grow mold, which attacked the emulsion of the paper. It also created a very dark “halo” around that area of the plant.
I’ve started experimenting with magnifying glasses as well, as a way to “burn in” areas of the plant, and even burn the paper and plant itself. This way it puts me back in the darkroom in a way, except in a much slower and longer period of time, as “burning” takes a lot of time for there to be any noticeable change. Overall it’s pretty fun and the process becomes more interactive than it already is.
Here are the scans of the Lumens I did on Thursday and one from last weekend:
These next two are from the same plant. I really like the difference in the two. I thought the plant would hold its shape a lot better than it did, but as they are now, I think unless the viewer was told that they wouldn’t know any better. The exposure times were also different; the first one was exposed for about 4.5 hours and the second was exposed for 1.5-2 hours.
Many thanks to my friend Tyler who hooked me up with some tempered glass that will really help me crank these out (provided I have plants). Now all I need to do is get a statement written up and finally email it to the guy in Nebraska for the possible show.
Edit: I got sick of the previous template not wrapping the text (or not not wrapping the text) around photos in the posts, so I’ve changed to this one.
My dad just gave me this photograph he took on the way to Little Lemhi Scout Camp. It’s about 3 years old, and I thought I’d share. You don’t see too many photos of myself.
Oh, and due to bad winds, we took the day off from work, so I took advantage of the situation and made three Lumen prints. I made 2 with the same plant, as was suggested by my friend Scott. The second exposure was a bit shorter than the first, but it’s still interesting to see what the re-used plant does. They were both exposed on Kodak Ektalure. The other print was done on Oriental Seagull. I’m really beginning to like that paper when exposed for 2-3 hours. When exposed for much longer the paper goes a purple color that I don’t particularly like. Exposures of 2-3 hours causes the paper to stay a subtle purple-ish brown that I do like. Once they dry, I’ll get them scanned and posted.
I’ve settled on the name lumens.
Today after work I went up to Market Lake. We’re building in Osgood, so it’s only a short jaunt up the road. There’s still quite a bit of ice on the water, but there are a few open spots with some really cool birds (Darren, you up for a birding trip?). One of the open spots had just enough plants to start a couple new exposures.On the way home, the thought hit me to see what they look like inverted, because technically they are negatives, so I was curious to see them as “positives.” Here are a few examples (I really like them, especially the first one):
Sunday’s open portfolio sharing at SPE was really successful. I ended up getting a potential show of my photograms/Lumen prints, and was asked about publishing them. I was, and still am, very excited about it. I wasn’t totally convinced those would be well-received, or cared for. After showing them at the conference and getting so much good feedback, it gave me just that much more motivation to continue them.Yesterday during lunch I went to a canal which has a little flowing water near the job site in Osgood. I didn’t find anything floating in the water, but I found lots of plants on the thawing muddy banks. I just set one out to expose about 15 minutes ago. It’s really cloudy and overcast and raining a little, so the light is pretty weak, but the whole spirit of doing these is experimentation, unpredictability, and serendipity.I’ll try to keep track of things on twitter if anyone is interested in somewhat of a live update to the exposures.Oh, and I can never settle on a preference of calling them photograms or Lumen prints, the term coined by Jerry Burchfield.
